The Era of the Quantified Self is upon us. Metrics and measurements are increasingly a part of our daily lives, whether it’s tracking our steps or the quality of our sleep. If you’re already using MyFitnessPal, you’re almost certainly tracking calories in, calories out, and the progress of your weigh-ins.

But beyond that… Ask ten MyFitnessPal users how they measure their success and you’re likely to get twenty answers! A bodybuilder might want to add an inch to her biceps, while someone else may want to confirm that his eating and exercise are having a positive effect on his blood sugar, still another user could be focusing on getting back into a pair pre-pregnancy jeans. (Step away from the scale with these other great ways to track your health progress.)

Even if you’ve been using MyFitnessPal for a while, you may not be aware that you can add custom measurements to your account, and log the metrics that matter to you—up to one entry per day for each item.

You’ll need to visit your account on our website to add measurement categories. But once you’ve customized your list, those new items will sync to the “Progress” section of our mobile apps and you can make entries on the go, or on the web. If you’d like to modify or add measurements, here’s the how-to:

You’ll be taken to a page where you can add or remove measurements in your account. Any changes you make will be synced to the app the next time the app is connected to the internet.

On the website, these measurements will be visible in the “Check-In” area. In our apps, you’ll find them on the “Progress” page.

Each measurement can contain only one value per day, so, for instance, if you wish to track your blood pressure, you would need to add two measurements, one for systolic and one for diastolic. Similarly, if you wish to track your blood sugar more than once per day, we recommend creating an AM Blood Sugar and a PM Blood Sugar measurement, as an example.

Set a goal, add custom measurements, and watch your success unfold!

Have you already discovered this feature? Which measurements are you keeping track of with MyFitnessPal? Share in the comments below!

Steven Spraragen is the Customer Happiness Lead at MyFitnessPal, where teaching users about MyFitnessPal is his passion. Prior to joining MyFitnessPal he trained customers for Apple, Inc., and acting students for New York University and California Institute of the Arts.

I am glad that you chose blood sugar as your example. I am very bad at monitoring my blood sugar but anything that I can log in MFP I seem to be good at doing, so THANKS!!

Jose

Id like to see as many cardiovascular risk pertinent variables as possible… The app could store the lipidic profile (cholesterol and triglycerides), calculate the waist to hip ratio, etc.

Jane Levy

Basal Metabolic Rate would be nice. As I’m losing weight, I don’t think my original calculated BMR is accurate anymore.

Andrea Biancucci

Better Garmin/Tanita integration…..are you working on it?

Danielle McGackin

I’d like to be able to track the vitamins/supplements I take along with my diet so I know I’m not overdoing certain vitamins

Kh

Omg I have been thinking about this since I started using this app : ) why not….it’s an easy barcode scan for the listing and would be just like logging your food or exercise! ……I’d also love a morning and afternoon snack area so I can have a visual of WHEN I am snacking and on what! Kh

Kh

Omg I have been thinking about this since I started using this app : ) why not….it’s an easy barcode scan for the listing and would be just like logging your food or exercise! ……I’d also love a morning and afternoon snack area so I can have a visual of WHEN I am snacking and on what! Kh

JoAnn

scan your vitamin bottles like you would food to track them.

Lee Evans

I looked at the feature about a year ago as my Doctor needs me to track my blood pressure. Unfortunately once you’ve put the information in, you can’t get it out in any sensible way, and certainly not that I can give to my GP.

So I entered the murky world of the Withings App, which actually does this very well and even had an option to E-mail data to your doctor.

Be great if My Fitness Pal could have the functionality to record blood pressure correctly, i.e. two readings graphed at once with an E-mail or download facility.

Kh

A nutritionist at my doctors office is originally who encouraged me to use this app! She encourages her patients because she can monitor them if they wish (as a friend), or can up load it at appointments : )

Marion Harvie

Not a measurement as such, but I wish it would track net carbs.

Alex

How can you delete a measurement to track? I have hips in there twice, and I want to remove one of them.

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